ARR Needs Significant Cuts to the MSQ

my take is its the failure of the people that get invited to play by their friends and then their friends simply don't play with them? its all to often i see on reddit, and other outlets people get told how great the game is, they join because of their friends but they don't play with the people they were invited by because they don't want to and told to play with the trust system. Honestly I think the dev team should have implemented a system to allow vet players to use unlevel jobs to join in the story to play with the friends buy also get the xp from the story again when their friends are playing like the ffxi dev team did with the job sync system to allow people. as of now, you can't really help with msq quests with same level characters if you completed the quests already. sure you can revisit these quests but you get nothing.

I also think they need to do this with fetch quests though If you are going to do fetch quests, allow the player to either teleport to the npc that they need to report to complete or simply make it one quests to collect a set of items for most because that it was in ARR from the same damn npc. go get these come back. i need you to go this from this mob. come back. its a bit ridiculous and time consuming.

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Originally Posted by synthwev

And the voice acting is terrible. Please tell me it gets better later ������

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A Realm Reborn utilized US talent based in Los Angeles, while the direction and production were handled by a different team entirely. Starting in Heavensward those responsibilities were handed off to UK talent and a new studio, with a coordinated direction and production team.

It gets better.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

One thing I noticed is that after any major event in EW and DT, the NPCs quite literally tell you to take a break. They want you to STOP PLAYING THE GAME for at least an hour or two, hell even overnight, and mentally process what happened.

The emotional whiplash effect comes when you mainline the game in 16 hour marathons instead of nibbling at it in bite size chunks. When you pace yourself, slow down and follow the playtime pattern the game asks you to follow, the roller coaster turns into a much smoother and enjoyable ride. (This also applied to FFXVI's pacing problems.)

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That's probably a result of most of these story segments being originally stretched out over the course of patches that spanned weeks/months. Anyone jumping in now is effectively able to "binge watch" an entire expansion if they don't stop to take breaks/do side content along the way.

Incidentally, ARR is a "50 episode premiere" versus the "10 episode seasons" that followed, so of course ARR is going to feel like a slog compared to the rest even if its not that much longer overall.
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Originally Posted by MsMisato

I also think they need to do this with fetch quests though If you are going to do fetch quests, allow the player to either teleport to the npc that they need to report to complete or simply make it one quests to collect a set of items for most because that it was in ARR from the same damn npc. go get these come back. i need you to go this from this mob. come back. its a bit ridiculous and time consuming.

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Even better, let friends help with the fetch quests by letting everyone "split up gang" to complete different tasks. It's not like the system isn't already in place either, given there's FATEs where people can either kill or collect stuff to turn-in thus letting people collaborate as they see fit.

But really, while I agree that part of the problem is veteran players doing a poor job of selling their newbie friends on the game, a lot of fault falls on Square-Enix for making so many things not 2-3 people co-op friendly. Even SWTOR, another story-heavy MMO, learned real quick that the LEAST you could do is let your friend be there chilling in the background during dialogue/cutscenes instead of constantly forcing a disband.

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Originally Posted by Alicie

At level 20 after defeating Ifrit you are a hero. Now stop useless fetch quests entirely here and focus solely on the main thing.

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Ever play World of Warcraft? Every single expansion up to Shadowlands held fetch quests for animal droppings that were hardly related to the "main thing". I don't know if there any after that or not, because I stopped playing in 2018.

After Ifrit, you get to decide on a Grand Company to join. You still aren't famous throughout Eorzea. You still start your career as a Private Third Class. The Company of Heroes do not know who you are either. Those quests are their way of testing whether we are worthy of the information necessary to get to Titan. You aren't really known world-wide until after the Endwalker main story line.

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Originally Posted by MsMisato

my take is its the failure of the people that get invited to play by their friends and then their friends simply don't play with them? its all to often i see on reddit, and other outlets people get told how great the game is, they join because of their friends but they don't play with the people they were invited by because they don't want to and told to play with the trust system. Honestly I think the dev team should have implemented a system to allow vet players to use unlevel jobs to join in the story to play with the friends buy also get the xp from the story again when their friends are playing like the ffxi dev team did with the job sync system to allow people. as of now, you can't really help with msq quests with same level characters if you completed the quests already. sure you can revisit these quests but you get nothing.

I also think they need to do this with fetch quests though If you are going to do fetch quests, allow the player to either teleport to the npc that they need to report to complete or simply make it one quests to collect a set of items for most because that it was in ARR from the same damn npc. go get these come back. i need you to go this from this mob. come back. its a bit ridiculous and time consuming.

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What's the point? The MSQ is designed for solo play. Cutscenes ignore your party allies, sometimes teleport you away from your party, and constantly require you to leave the party for solo duties. The few purple circle monster moments in the MSQ are undertuned even for solo players. Trying to do the MSQ in a party only means the playable aspect is cut even shorter than it already is and most of the time is spent reading and watching dialog by yourself.
They'd need to come up with a co-op version of the MSQ for MSQ parties outside of dungeons and trials to make any sense.

I'm a sprout, I just played through it like 2 months ago. I don't think there should be any cuts to MSQ.

If square-Enix were smart. They would just do something that made it so ARR-HW-STB-SHB-EW and dawntrail became one era.

And make it so whatever the next expansion is everyone starts at level 1 again new players can start new expansion immediately like it was ARR, a new game.

Old era can be played at any time. It would solve level bloat and if new players don't want to play through 300hrs of content they don't have to... But it would still be there preserved.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Ever play World of Warcraft? Every single expansion up to Shadowlands held fetch quests for animal droppings that were hardly related to the "main thing". I don't know if there any after that or not, because I stopped playing in 2018.

After Ifrit, you get to decide on a Grand Company to join. You still aren't famous throughout Eorzea. You still start your career as a Private Third Class. The Company of Heroes do not know who you are either. Those quests are their way of testing whether we are worthy of the information necessary to get to Titan. You aren't really known world-wide until after the Endwalker main story line.

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Yes, I have played World of Warcraft.
When you buy the game, you receive a level skip straight to the newest expansion.
No grind, no chores, you pay - you get right into action.
Besides, you never needed to do these fetch quests. You can just spam dungeons, lol. Quests are optional. At least were at the time when I played.
And in addition I've heard that recently they made some unlocks account wide.
SE needs to learn a thing or two from Blizzard.

They already trimmed the ARR MSQ. I even re-roll another character to try it out.

It is so much better than in 2013.

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Originally Posted by Zotoh_Zhaan

I'm a sprout, I just played through it like 2 months ago. I don't think there should be any cuts to MSQ.

If square-Enix were smart. They would just do something that made it so ARR-HW-STB-SHB-EW and dawntrail became one era.

And make it so whatever the next expansion is everyone starts at level 1 again new players can start new expansion immediately like it was ARR, a new game.

Old era can be played at any time. It would solve level bloat and if new players don't want to play through 300hrs of content they don't have to... But it would still be there preserved.

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Not gonna lie, the more I think about this option, the more it makes sense to me especially regarding the poor state and reception of the current job and battle design.

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Originally Posted by Alicie

Yes, I have played World of Warcraft.
When you buy the game, you receive a level skip straight to the newest expansion.
No grind, no chores, you pay - you get right into action.
Besides, you never needed to do these fetch quests. You can just spam dungeons, lol. Quests are optional. At least were at the time when I played.
And in addition I've heard that recently they made some unlocks account wide.
SE needs to learn a thing or two from Blizzard.

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Go back to playing wow then instead of trying to bring wow into the Ffxiv.

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Originally Posted by Bubert

Go back to playing wow then instead of trying to bring wow into the Ffxiv.

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I hate when people are this cruel. "gO bAcK tO wHeRe yOu CaMe fRoM" should be reportable.

Whether you like it or not, World of Warcraft offers some valuable insight on what works and what doesn't. Square-Enix SHOULD be listening to their competitors to develop a well-rounded game.

WoW lets you select the expansion you wish to play and level syncs to everything. That's a lesson that FFXIV could definitely benefit from instead of raising the level cap to 3,000.

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Originally Posted by Zotoh_Zhaan

I'm a sprout, I just played through it like 2 months ago. I don't think there should be any cuts to MSQ.

If square-Enix were smart. They would just do something that made it so ARR-HW-STB-SHB-EW and dawntrail became one era.

And make it so whatever the next expansion is everyone starts at level 1 again new players can start new expansion immediately like it was ARR, a new game.

Old era can be played at any time. It would solve level bloat and if new players don't want to play through 300hrs of content they don't have to... But it would still be there preserved.

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They missed the chance to do this when 6.0 ended. A different path from 6.1 would have been the perfect time to start a new storyline that didn't require knowledge of the previous 10 years worth of story and Scions' background and any new player would be able to choose to start with that one without feeling like they parachuted themselves into a clique that goes way back.

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Originally Posted by Bubert

Go back to playing wow then instead of trying to bring wow into the Ffxiv.

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Garbage take considering this game only had the design direction it has because they looked at WoW as the main inspiration.

Inspiration and completely copying the game are two different things. You all quit Wow, migrated to Ffxiv then dare to moan why Ffxiv don’t have the things Wow has. How funny.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

That's probably a result of most of these story segments being originally stretched out over the course of patches that spanned weeks/months. Anyone jumping in now is effectively able to "binge watch" an entire expansion if they don't stop to take breaks/do side content along the way.

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No, this is in the MSQ itself. After a major events within the base 6.0 and 7.0 storylines, the NPCs say "wow that was rough, you probably need a nap, come talk to me again when you've had a break"

And that was my cue to log off for the day and thing about what I've done.

The story of Dawntrail takes place over 2 months time, if you stop and count the days that were said to pass (like Wuk being gone overnight for her alpaca hunt) or times night was depicted..... and the times the NPCs said LET'S TAKE A BREAK!

The MSQ length isn't the problem, A lot of that worldbuilding is why so many people praise and get so attached to FFXIV's story. The problem is the lack of gameplay variety.

Every one of the 240 pre-HW quests is either:

• Click on an object/NPC
• Walk to an NPC/object somewhere else and click on them
• Kill some fodder mobs in the open world
• Kill some fodder mobs that appear when you go to a certain location
• Kill some fodder mobs in a solo instance
• Walk to and complete a dungeon

So much text and nothing interesting to break it up, eventually it all starts to smear together.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

Whether you like it or not, World of Warcraft offers some valuable insight on what works and what doesn't. Square-Enix SHOULD be listening to their competitors to develop a well-rounded game.

WoW lets you select the expansion you wish to play and level syncs to everything. That's a lesson that FFXIV could definitely benefit from instead of raising the level cap to 3,000.

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I do agree that WoW has some good insights when it comes to gameplay. However FF14's main strength lies in its story (the main thing it's praised for). What you're suggesting is to simply throw away that strength in favor of...what? Far be it from me to tell others how to play, but this is a MMOJRPG after all. If you wish to skip the story, then just buy the MogSkips instead of asking for cuts to the MSQ.

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Originally Posted by Xieldras

However FF14's main strength lies in its story (the main thing it's praised for). What you're suggesting is to simply throw away that strength in favor of...what? Far be it from me to tell others how to play, but this is a MMOJRPG after all. If you wish to skip the story, then just buy the MogSkips instead of asking for cuts to the MSQ.

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Just for clarification, I'm not suggesting that they throw away the story. Far from it.

What I am suggesting is level syncs for all content. There's a massive discrepancy in current ARR because you level too quickly for the game. It goes so fast that all of the content is pure cake. I've leveled an alt and I'm blown away at how OP I am in everything.

I DO think that players should be able to skip Dawntrail. It was bad. Bad enough that I think it will be another hurdle to keep players engaged with the game. Be it a level skip or what have you, it should follow WoW's structure of an instant level up included with the expansion. That's right: included.

ARR to Endwalker was an excellent journey. Yeah ARR had a lot of fluff but eventually you got there. I don't think you should have to pay for a MogSkip to catch up to whatever's after Dawntrail.

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Originally Posted by Xieldras

I do agree that WoW has some good insights when it comes to gameplay. However FF14's main strength lies in its story (the main thing it's praised for). What you're suggesting is to simply throw away that strength in favor of...what? Far be it from me to tell others how to play, but this is a MMOJRPG after all. If you wish to skip the story, then just buy the MogSkips instead of asking for cuts to the MSQ.

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Skip should come together with full game purchase then. Pay $60 for game then pay additional $50 to skip to relevant expansion? Isn't it a little bit too steep to ask for $110 just to start playing the game?

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Originally Posted by Alicie

Skip should come together with full game purchase then. Pay $60 for game then pay additional $50 to skip to relevant expansion? Isn't it a little bit too steep to ask for $110 just to start playing the game?

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Then play the game? Skips exist to bypass the experience offered to you, i.e: trading in money instead of time spent.

Also you pay for every expansion regardless, so I'm not certain how your monetary argument comes in.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

I DO think that players should be able to skip Dawntrail. It was bad. Bad enough that I think it will be another hurdle to keep players engaged with the game. Be it a level skip or what have you, it should follow WoW's structure of an instant level up included with the expansion. That's right: included.

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Can't really disagree with that though. Dawntrail's MSQ almost put me off the game entirely.

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Originally Posted by Xieldras

Then play the game? Skips exist to bypass the experience offered to you, i.e: trading in money instead of time spent.

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Except it's not the gameplay, it's back and forth useless slog most of which don't even contribute to the story

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

I hate when people are this cruel. "gO bAcK tO wHeRe yOu CaMe fRoM" should be reportable.

Whether you like it or not, World of Warcraft offers some valuable insight on what works and what doesn't. Square-Enix SHOULD be listening to their competitors to develop a well-rounded game.

WoW lets you select the expansion you wish to play and level syncs to everything. That's a lesson that FFXIV could definitely benefit from instead of raising the level cap to 3,000.

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Eh, I stopped playing WoW for a reason, so I'd rather FF14 didn't just turn into "Weeb of Warcraft" by turning into another mindless raid simulator where everyone rushes to endgame with zero plot and dumb lore but it's just anime styled aesthetics instead of cartoon style.

I can tell that most of you who support msq butchering don’t even love this game. Makes me wonder why you all are here and why you all paying the sub if this game is so “Horrible”. Lol

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Originally Posted by NegativeS

The MSQ length isn't the problem, A lot of that worldbuilding is why so many people praise and get so attached to FFXIV's story. The problem is the lack of gameplay variety.

Every one of the 240 pre-HW quests is either:

• Click on an object/NPC
• Walk to an NPC/object somewhere else and click on them
• Kill some fodder mobs in the open world
• Kill some fodder mobs that appear when you go to a certain location
• Kill some fodder mobs in a solo instance
• Walk to and complete a dungeon

So much text and nothing interesting to break it up, eventually it all starts to smear together.

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Why specify pre-HW when nothing changes for the better in the gameplay department after?
In fact there is less and less MSQ combat outside of the solo duties (which are also a thing in ARR MSQ since pre Lv10) 3.1 onwards.

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Originally Posted by Bubert

I can tell that most of you who support msq butchering don’t even love this game. Makes me wonder why you all are here and why you all paying the sub if this game is so “Horrible”. Lol

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Genuine question: why are you here

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

Why specify pre-HW when nothing changes for the better in the gameplay department after?
In fact there is less and less MSQ combat outside of the solo duties (which are also a thing in ARR MSQ since pre Lv10) 3.1 onwards.

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Because the thread is specifically about ARR.

I know it doesn't get better after, but at least the story starts to pick up (e.g. WOL actually has a stake in the story rather than just following one or more Scions in a circuit around Aldenard) somewhere around Shiva, which is enough of a hook for most people.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Genuine question: why are you here

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To read ya’ll nonsense

Say whatever you want but ARR is still a player filter, unless the person can make it to post ARR/Early HW without uninstalling.
Also they compacted some of the ARR MSQ once before in 5.x, so I guess anything is possible.

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Originally Posted by Sunhwapark

Say whatever you want but ARR is still a player filter, unless the person can make it to post ARR/Early HW without uninstalling.
Also they compacted some of the ARR MSQ once before in 5.x, so I guess anything is possible.

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That’s less because of the story and more because of the jobs and quest design

ARR should be redesigned to be more active and jobs should be designed to not be as terrible as they are at early levels

Skipping it by cutting half of it doesn’t fix the problem

If we cut all off ARR as a theoretical example then HW would just become the “great filter”

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Originally Posted by Sunhwapark

Say whatever you want but ARR is still a player filter, unless the person can make it to post ARR/Early HW without uninstalling.
Also they compacted some of the ARR MSQ once before in 5.x, so I guess anything is possible.

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A 'player filter' should be gameplay related. ARR being a slog is more akin to One Piece fans saying it gets good at episode 500.

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Originally Posted by Xieldras

If we start trimming too much from the MSQ, then don't we remove the player's immersion from the world where said story actually takes place in?

Sure some stuff is not important, but it gives it the extra flavoring doesn't it?

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People love saying this, but they need to understand that a lot of new players give up on the game because of ARR.

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Originally Posted by NegativeS

I know it doesn't get better after, but at least the story starts to pick up (e.g. WOL actually has a stake in the story rather than just following one or more Scions in a circuit around Aldenard) somewhere around Shiva, which is enough of a hook for most people.

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But my WoL had a lot of stake in ARR! For example, after hearing that the Gridanians used the homes of my ancestors as a dumping ground for their dead, let the place go to ruin, and now have a problem with undead and some cult in there, I would have loved to tell Miounne where exactly she can shove the idea that I'm the one to fix their self-inflicted problems.

I just wasn't allowed to.

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Originally Posted by PaulusHamsteru

People love saying this, but they need to understand that a lot of new players give up on the game because of ARR.

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And I would argue it's not because of the story, but because of how you're able to progress it. Crystal Tower was hands-down the biggest sprout killer I ever saw back when I played on Dynamis, and MSQ trials don't help either, especially once a new player steps into Shadowbringers, assuming they even make it that far.

So long as new player MSQ progress gets locked behind group content that requires veteran players to show up (and stay), it's always going to be impossible to keep new players around because they literally get stuck and can't go any further after certain points. Making them meander around doing inane tasks during solo quests isn't great either, but they can at least skip the cutscenes if they're that bored of the story in the story-driven MMO they signed up for... and they may as well keep right on skipping cutscenes all the way through because it's not like anything in SHB or EW will make sense for them anyway.

But there's no just skipping Crystal Tower, not without at least 11 other people, and then hoping 2 of them stick around afterwards, otherwise its back to making a new PF provided of course that a new player even knows how to make one to begin with and doesn't try to just direct queue into every part of Crystal Tower... which then drags jilted veterans into their thousandth run of the place, assuming it pops at all. Which it often didn't on Dynamis, so you NEEDED to make an unsync PF or data center travel (which is another feature most new players won't know about).

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Originally Posted by PaulusHamsteru

People love saying this, but they need to understand that a lot of new players give up on the game because of ARR.

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And if we cut ARR then a whole lot of people would quit in HW

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

And if we cut ARR then a whole lot of people would quit in HW

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No cuts needed, but streamline the questing process. I think they've done enough of the actual removal of quests.
Just have someone playthrough the MSQ and make notes where quests feel a bit much in terms of running around and you're golden.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

And if we cut ARR then a whole lot of people would quit in HW

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Bring new players, at least these that bought Dawntrail expansion, directly into Dawntrail. Give them what they paid for, right away.

Frankly both problems aren't really mutually exclusive, the gameplay progression and questing has been questionable for a long time and puts off a lot of players, and the story/writing isn't much better. The only reason I managed to keep going through in XIV when I started is because I'm stubborn, but also because I enjoyed the world building but also the gameplay (because it was still HW release, so sub lvl50 still meant something unlike the slop it's been since SB/SHB). Without the gameplay, just going from quest to quest without truly playing anything but reading a light novel, and going through the most infamous msq parts like the company of heroes or post ARR, or even Sea of Clouds in HW, I would possibly have just dropped out quite frankly. I love a good story, but those incredibly boring moments sure read like they were designed to test your mettle.

I do not know how new players those days manage to go through, even the gameplay outside of the questing is incredibly boring.

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Originally Posted by Bubert

To read ya’ll nonsense

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Why would you inflict that upon yourself

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Originally Posted by Valence

The only reason I managed to keep going through in XIV when I started is because I'm stubborn

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I went through ARR because the cap was only L50
Then when I went to HW, it was just 10 more.
Then when I went to SB, it was just 10 more.
Then when I went to ShB, it was just 10 more.
Then when I went to EW, it was just 10 more.
Then when I went to DT, it was just 10 more.

The problem is that all of us who have been playing for years only had to worry about "just 10 more" and not "just 100 more"

It's easier for people to defend the leveling system because it was short spurts in over a decade of gaming.